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With great immediacy, the diaries of Willy Cohn, a Jew and a Social Democrat, show how the process of marginalization under the Nazis unfolded within the vibrant Jewish community of Breslau--until that community was destroyed in 1941. Cohn documents how difficult it was to understand precisely what was happening, even as people were harassed, beaten, and taken off to concentration camps. He chronicles the efforts of the community to maintain some semblance of normal life at the same time as many made plans to emigrate or to get their children out. Cohn and his wife Gertrud were able to get their three oldest children out of Germany before it was too late. However, burying himself in his work chronicling the history of the Jews in Germany, his diaries, and his memoirs, Cohn missed his own chance to escape. In late 1941, he, Gertrud, and their two young daughters were deported to Lithuania, where they were shot. Willy Cohn was a complex individual: an Orthodox Jew and a socialist; an ardent Zionist and a staunch German patriot; a realist but also an idealist often unable to cope with reality; a democrat and an admirer of certain Nazi policies and of their resoluteness. These contradictions and the wealth of detail that poured from his pen give us a unique view of those disorienting and frightening times in Germany.… (more)
Willy Cohn's diaries beg comparison with Victor Klemperer's. Certainly the two men had a lot in common: both married, middle-aged German-Jewish intellectuals, fiercely patriotic in spite of what their country was doing to them, and just trying to hang on and survive the Nazi era as best they could. Klemperer survived; Cohn did not.
The diary was certainly worth reading as a historical document, but I didn't like it as much as Klemperer's diaries and I didn't like its author as much. Cohn was a conservative Jew with opinions that were disconcertingly similar to Hitler's: Jews could never assimilate into the population and should not try, Germany needed "living space" even if they had to invade other countries to get it, etc. He certainly wouldn't have approved of Klemperer with his "mixed marriage" and his (albeit nominal) conversion to Christianity.
The parts of the book I liked the most were when Cohn wrote about his five children. He was an affectionate and devoted parent and his fatherly love shines through in his entries. He was able to get the oldest three children out in time; all of them wound up in Israel. The youngest two shared his fate.
As the years passed and Germany grew ever darker, Cohn spoke of emigrating, but he really didn't want to leave, and couldn't make up his mind. He was all like, "I want to go to Israel but the wife wants to go to America. To which countries can I get my pension transferred to? I'm fifty already; isn't it too late to start again in a whole other country?" Sometimes I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and scream in his face to wake him up. Towards the end I think he did start to realize the seriousness of the situation; he wrote that he didn't care what happened to him, that he'd lived his life, and he was only concerned about getting his wife and two young daughters to safety. But by then it was too late.
If you have a special interest in Holocaust diaries, or daily life for German Jews during the Nazi era, I would recommend this. It's definitely not for the casual reader though. ( )
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
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Dedication
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
À la mémoire de Louis (Wölfl), Ernst-Abraham, Ruth, Susanne et Tamara.
First words
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Préface (Norbert Conrads - Préface traduite par Prune Le Bourdon-Brécourt)
Lorsqu’il rédigea son journal, Willy Cohn ne pouvait s’imaginer qu’un jour un chef d’État allemand en lirait des extraits devant le Parlement en assemblée plénière. [...]
La prise de pouvoir et la révocation de tous les droits 30 janvier 1933
Breslau, lundi. Aujourd’hui, je n’ai pas cours, je me suis installé quelques heures à mon bureau pour travailler à mon livre sur les Normands. [...]
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Le journal initial couvre quelque cent vingt cahiers couvrant les années 1899 à 1941, soit plus de dix mille pages manuscrites.
Le choix est limité pour la publication allemande de son journal aux années allant de 1933 à 1941, année de son assassinat. Cela représentait quatre mille six cents pages à transcrire, à partir desquelles il fallait opérer une sélection.
La parution allemande commentée parait en 2006 en 2 tomes. Suivent trois éditions différentes en Allemagne entre 2006 et 2009. S’ensuivirent une édition polonaise en 2010, puis une édition américaine abrégée en 2012 ainsi qu’une grande édition hébraïque en 2014.
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Original language
Information from the French Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
With great immediacy, the diaries of Willy Cohn, a Jew and a Social Democrat, show how the process of marginalization under the Nazis unfolded within the vibrant Jewish community of Breslau--until that community was destroyed in 1941. Cohn documents how difficult it was to understand precisely what was happening, even as people were harassed, beaten, and taken off to concentration camps. He chronicles the efforts of the community to maintain some semblance of normal life at the same time as many made plans to emigrate or to get their children out. Cohn and his wife Gertrud were able to get their three oldest children out of Germany before it was too late. However, burying himself in his work chronicling the history of the Jews in Germany, his diaries, and his memoirs, Cohn missed his own chance to escape. In late 1941, he, Gertrud, and their two young daughters were deported to Lithuania, where they were shot. Willy Cohn was a complex individual: an Orthodox Jew and a socialist; an ardent Zionist and a staunch German patriot; a realist but also an idealist often unable to cope with reality; a democrat and an admirer of certain Nazi policies and of their resoluteness. These contradictions and the wealth of detail that poured from his pen give us a unique view of those disorienting and frightening times in Germany.
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The diary was certainly worth reading as a historical document, but I didn't like it as much as Klemperer's diaries and I didn't like its author as much. Cohn was a conservative Jew with opinions that were disconcertingly similar to Hitler's: Jews could never assimilate into the population and should not try, Germany needed "living space" even if they had to invade other countries to get it, etc. He certainly wouldn't have approved of Klemperer with his "mixed marriage" and his (albeit nominal) conversion to Christianity.
The parts of the book I liked the most were when Cohn wrote about his five children. He was an affectionate and devoted parent and his fatherly love shines through in his entries. He was able to get the oldest three children out in time; all of them wound up in Israel. The youngest two shared his fate.
As the years passed and Germany grew ever darker, Cohn spoke of emigrating, but he really didn't want to leave, and couldn't make up his mind. He was all like, "I want to go to Israel but the wife wants to go to America. To which countries can I get my pension transferred to? I'm fifty already; isn't it too late to start again in a whole other country?" Sometimes I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and scream in his face to wake him up. Towards the end I think he did start to realize the seriousness of the situation; he wrote that he didn't care what happened to him, that he'd lived his life, and he was only concerned about getting his wife and two young daughters to safety. But by then it was too late.
If you have a special interest in Holocaust diaries, or daily life for German Jews during the Nazi era, I would recommend this. It's definitely not for the casual reader though. (